It seems to me that the fewer words there are to find, the better I do. When the target is high, it seems I just miss more of them.
I wonder if anyone else has this problem?
KM, I have often had that perception, but an examination of my record shows that the difference is slight in my own case. I have ten years of statistics compiled by Alan W. to show that the percentage differences among my achievements in the three puzzles are very slight. My current spread among the three puzzles for the common words found is 1.4 percent, and yes, the Standard percentage is highest, followed by the Challenge, and then the 10-letter. If one factors in all words played, then the spread is 2.2 percent, and ironically, the Challenge puzzle is the one I do best on, followed by the Standard, then the 10-Letter. This is probably an anomaly, since when I play the Standard puzzle I occasionally indulge in the game play that some others do, namely to get a rosette playing only the common words. If I always went full throttle in the Standard, I would probably also have the highest percentage of all words found in that game, as well.
The first year or so that I played Chihuahua, I also used a puzzle solver occasionally to find all the common words. Eventually I decided that getting a rosette was not the be all and end all for me; I would rather just try to get as many words as possible by relying on my own memory. Over time, my percentages have gone beyond where they were back when I was using a puzzle solver, just through practice and repetition. I owe quite a bit of this to my friendly rivalry with roberts, another long-time Chi player. I doubt that my high ranking would be nearly as high if I didn't engage in this daily back and forth.
I personally couldn't care less what score other players achieve.
Pat, I think you actually could care less. If you did, you might not have posted
this. Such comments might lead one to believe you actually do care what score some other players achieve and how they do it, even if you don't measure yourself against their performance.
Back then , my comments were quite scathing about those players who could achieve a perfect score in every game . i have softened my attitude somwhat but at the end of the day, in my opinion , they are just cheats.
Clearly just an opinion, since you acknowledge that people have the right to play the game as they choose. Those players who achieve such high scores with apparent ease are not violating the terms of Chihuahua; hence, they are not cheating. They are violating your expectations of how players should behave. When I first started playing Chihuahua, I did not understand what the Shuffle function was. Once I grasped it, I still wondered if using it constituted cheating. Eventually I decided that if Alan had made it so openly available to everyone, it surely was not cheating. I use it copiously now in every game, but it would not surprise me if there are some players who even now consider it to be cheating. My point here is that "cheating" in Chihuahua is in the eye of the beholder. With so many different sets of goals, expectations, levels of interest and time available among the six hundred plus Chihuahua players, it shouldn't be surprising that there is a wide variation in player styles. I think it is perhaps unjust to expect everyone to hew to your line.
KM, keep using the puzzle solver as long as you need to. My game started to improve when I began to keep lists of the words I missed instead, one list for the common words, one for the uncommon ones, one for the attempts that did not turn out to be words. For a while I consulted these lists during game play, but I no longer do that and haven't for years. I just find that writing down the missed words helps me remember them better.